clothe

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English clothen,^[2][3] inherited from Old English clāþian,^[3][4][5] from clāþ (“cloth, garment”),^[3][5][6] which is also the source of cloth.^[3][6] The Old English verb is recorded only in the past participle geclāded, in a late Northumbrian text.^[2][7] The OED also records clǣþan, which it takes as the source of the past form cladde, later clad, and probably of the northern clethen.^[4] Skeat considered clad Scandinavian, and the Shorter Oxford allows influence from Old Norse klæða, but the OED calls the Norse derivation a former view.^[8][9][4] The Germanic forms are Proto-Germanic *klaiþōną^[1] and the OED's *klaiþjan, from the noun *klaiþą (“cloth”).^[4][10] Compare German kleiden and Dutch kleden.^[4][1] Wiktionary continues to Proto-Indo-European *gley- (“to adhere, stick”), but Kroonen finds that meaning hard to reconcile with the noun.^[1][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

To put clothes on someone: the OED's first quotation is the Northumbrian past participle in the Lindisfarne Gospels (Mark 5:15), glossing Latin vestitum.^[4][2] Barnhart dates the Old English verb to about 950,^[5] and Dictionary.com to before 950.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Old English also had scrydan and gewædian for this idea,^[12] and the verb itself is rare there.^[4] A reflexive use is recorded from about 1175.^[4] From the 14th century it spread beyond garments: to armour and ornaments (1382), to covering a thing with cloth (about 1369, in Chaucer), and to anything that covers as clothing does, such as vegetation on the earth (about 1385, again in Chaucer).^[4] Figurative use is dated to about 1300 by Etymonline and about 1340 by the OED.^[12][4] The Shorter Oxford adds the senses "disguise" in late Middle English and "endow with power or a quality" in the early 17th century.^[9] A short-lived Middle English sense was to put a garment on oneself, to don it.^[4][9] Investing someone with a religious habit is recorded from 1628,^[4] and rigging a ship from 1714.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 950 – Old English, to dress; past participle only.^[5][4]
• c. 1175 – reflexive, to dress oneself.^[4]
• before 1300 – to put on as a garment (obsolete by 1400).^[4]
• c. 1340 – figurative use.^[4] Etymonline dates it to about 1300.^[12]
• c. 1369 – to cover with a cloth, in Chaucer's Book of the Duchess.^[4]
• before 1382 – to cover as clothing does.^[4]
• 1382 – to fit out with armour or ornaments.^[4]
• c. 1385 – of vegetation covering the ground.^[4]
• 1628 – to invest with a religious habit.^[4]
• 1697 – of leaves and blossoms on trees and plants.^[4]
• 1714 – in sailing, to rig a ship or mast.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To put clothes on someone; to dress: She clothed the twins in matching coats.^[13][14][4]
2. To provide someone with clothes: Her wages barely clothed the three children.^[13][14][4]
3. To cover something as clothing does: Ivy clothed the old wall.^[13][4][9]
4. To conceal or disguise something: He clothed his threat in polite words.^[13][9]
5. To endow or invest someone with a quality or with power.^[13][9]
6. To invest someone with the habit of a religious order or the robes of an office.^[14][4][9]
7. To cover something with a cloth.^[4][9]
8. (nautical) To rig a ship or mast.^[4][9]
9. (rare) Without an object, to dress oneself or be dressed.^[4][9]
10. (obsolete, before 1300–1400) To put on a garment; to don.^[4][9]

Word family

• enclothe
• reclothe
• unclothe

Related words

• cloth
• clothes
• clothing
• clad
• clothier

Usage notes

The past tense and past participle are clothed or clad, and both have come down from Middle English;^[4][14] in Chaucer's use clad is the more frequent.^[15] The Shorter Oxford now labels clad archaic, technical or formal.^[9] Yclad was very rare in Middle English and was revived by Elizabethan archaizers, after whom it became a "Spenserian" form in later poets.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
13. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
15. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme